The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is in hot water after the Commission on Audit (CoA) found some P3.6 million worth of unliquidated cash advances in the agency in 2017 and P5.4 million spent on trainings and seminars at ritzy hotels.
The audit showed P1.066 million worth of unliquidated cash advances from employees and P2.565 million from special disbursing officers.
The cash advances were used for either local and foreign travels, or special projects.
The CoA also found officers from CHR Eastern Visayas were issued P122,558 worth of cash advances despite the non-liquidation of previous cash advances.
At CHR Zamboanga Peninsula, cash advances which were not bonded were released to employees “which may result to possible loss of government funds,” CoA said.
Impose sanctions
CHR should impose sanctions on officials who “neglect obligations in handling cash advances in accordance with existing laws, rules and regulations,” CoA said.
The CHR also spent P5.404 million for trainings and seminars which were held at hotels, where it booked rooms for participants instead of spending for only function rooms.
“CHR could have minimized the incurrence of substantial amount of training expenses had it either provided training venues within the office premises or utilized available resources and government facilities; or had the agency held the 20 seminars/workshops on a non-residential (live-out) basis,” COA said.